Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1887-02-17
THE NORTHWEST
INDUSTRIAL SLAVERY.
BY HON. FRANK II. HURD, OF OHIO.

BY HON. FRANK II. HURD, OF OHIO.
1t is the habit of men who are oppos-
ed to free-trade to depreciate the inn
portance of the issue which it presents.
It has sometimes been called a local
issue. In the sense that the selfishness
of certain localities is consulted it is
true, but in the broader sense of the
common good it is false. What issue
involves more interests and power than
this? It involves the whole question of
Federal taxation; it affects all contracts,
all toll, all wages. 1t reaches down to
all the relations involved in the field of
contest between capital and labor it
touches all the points of difference be-
tween the employer and the employe.
1t determines the position ofthe citizen
to his government. 1t fixes the rela-
tions of the United States with all the
nations of the world, and as well the
relation of every American citizen with
every man in the world What issue
involves more? All other issues are
bound up in it. Every other question
sinks into insignificance. In days of
peace, when men are not numbering
one another, it is the question above all
questions. 1t is as general as the
necessities of humanity, as universal as
the blood of mankind; it is the living,
burning, blazing question of this hour,
and more for another reason than any
| have suggested, that it involves the
question of liberty.
I take it for granted that no man will
deny that under a Republican form of
government, ut least each citizen shall
have full opportunity to buy and sell
to every living man. That right of in
dependence, that right of freedom, in
wolves the control of the products of
each mans own toll. And who is free
who cannot control his own labor?
What was the African slavery, which
the blood and the death and the graves
of the war abolished, but the owner
ship of the labor of one man by another
man? Whoever owns my labor owns
me. Whoever controls the wages of
my toll is my master If this right
that have to trade with all the world
is to be restricted by law for any other
purpose than public one, then who
shall be the person who controls this
right? have toiled day out of my
existence. Its hopes, its fears, its de-
slres, are all gone, and what is there to
show for it? The dollar which / have
earned. That dollar is the expression
and the incarnation of them all. With
that dollar can buy from the Austrian
or the Russian an article that desire,
an article which perfectly satisfies me,
an article which he is perfectly willing
to sell me; and as am about to pay
the dollar for the article that need the
United States Government presents
itself, with its power and dominion,
and says to me, You must buy it of the
man who has made it in Providence, it
may be, Rhode Island. / say, Yes,
will buy from him. did not know
that my American fellOw-citizen was
selling these articles. If had known
it would have gone and given him
my dollar for his article. | go, in my
ignorance of these methods of taxation,
and present my dollar for the article
which he has to sell. He laughs at me.
"We are not selling these articles for
81. They are worth 49," Why, I could
buy, say to him, as good an article as
that from the Austrian, from the
Frenchman, from the Russian, it may
be; why not let me buy it from him,
then, if you cannot sell it to me for the
same dollar which he was ready to take
from me? The Government of the
United States, he replies to me, is in
every man to pay me 81 more for this.
[ have to pay the additional dollar
Where do get it? The Government
of the United States spassing no laws
to put dollars in my pocket. | cannot
go and get it from the Treasury of my
county, or my city, or my State, but |
must go back to my toll from which l
earned the first dollar and get the
second dollar; and then with the second
days toll, and with the second dollar of
gain, / go and purchase the article that
I desire. Whose day was that second
day? Whose dollar was that second
dollar? Not mine. 1t was the manu-
facturer of the article, which l was
compelled to buy, by the power of the
United States Government, of the man
who lived in Providence, r.. /. had
toiled one day out of my life, against
my will and against my interest, for
him. And was as much his slave as
though under the whip and the spur
and the lash he had wakened me in the
morning hour and compelled me to toll
for him until the setting of the sun.
I say to you, my fellow-citizens, that
every dollar OF the increase Of price
which the protective tariff occasions is
q day of slavery to the American
laborer, and every hour of unnecessary
toll which it requires is stolen from
that store of responsibilities and duties
which each individual has control of to
answer for at the judgment-seat of
God. ...--...
My fellow-citizens, with the labor of
every man involved, who shall not say
that free-trade is the burning issue of
the hour? Free-trade comes to strike
offthese shaclzles which protection has
imposed. 1t finds the American larbor-
ing man bound hand and foot, striving,
perishing, dying, and it strikes off the
shackles and sets him upon his feet as
free man again. You wonder why,
my friends. There are so many points
Of view from which could tell you
why Ihardly know where to begin
But this one thought is the only one
which shall impress upon you to-
night. 1t will not involve the question
of the abstract merits Of protection and
free-trade, but it will simply put to
yyour inr.riry. fo.niOht Nyh of har thnra 10